The Grand Staff. Treble Clef on upper staff; Bass Clef on lower staff (image: wikipedia) The curving flourishes of music notation have always been something a mystery to me, although every day I, like ...

At the top of every score, and the beginning of every stave, repeated on every line, is a symbol that, to seasoned musicians, becomes so familiar as to be invisible. The humble but mighty clef. Clef ...

FRANK ZAPPA once wrote, “The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has the medieval aroma -- like the days when everything used to sound like that.... It’s a great noise -- nothing else makes ...